


The Fall of the Golden Deer

by weenie_wife



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Character Death Fix, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Hurt Claude von Riegan, No Romance, Pain, Post-Timeskip Battle at Gronder Field (Fire Emblem), Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29520234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weenie_wife/pseuds/weenie_wife
Summary: Claude doesn’t even die with fanfare. A battle gets chaotic and Claude gets knocked off his wyvern. And he falls… and falls… and no one can notice until the fighting stops. Everything ends and people start to assess the damage and someone asks where Claude is and… He is usually so active, making sure everything and everyone is okay, being a GOOD leader, talking with a grin because they won. But it is silent, and someone looks up and sees his wyvern. She circles before landing. And she’s alone. People might hope he’s still alive somewhere but they finally find his body. To see him not die gloriously, but completely unnoticed. He’s already stiff. An accident, another casualty of war. And thus begins the fall of the Golden Deer.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	The Fall of the Golden Deer

The battlefield was awash with a grim light. The sun had already begun to fall behind the mountains in the distance when the chaos finally started to cease. When it was evident that the alliance had turned the tide and were about to win the battle, the empire’s remaining soldiers turned tail and ran, tripping over their own feet with dying sunlight chasing them away. The sun was now fully descended behind the stony peaks, the fading light casting large shadows on the survivors of the battle. The screams of the dying were fewer and farther between as soldiers crept through the rows of bodies to finish off anyone still suffering in the mud and dirt. The silence between each finishing blow was almost as jarring as the screams from the chaos of the earlier bloodshed. Almost. 

The Golden Deer didn’t have much to say to each other. No congratulations appeared to be in order, as the weight of their sins fell on them. They were all exhausted from the brutal battle, hands still painted with the blood of the fallen. Each of them had found a place to process the battle, and they all sat alone, sifting through their thoughts. Claude was nowhere to be found, though they all just figured he was finishing up post-battle procedures, chasing down any stragglers from the Empire army. Their professor Byleth was out with a team on the field, finishing off any poor souls who didn’t die a quick enough death. They all processed a battle in different ways, some of the students figured.

*  


Hilda sat on a rock low to the ground, head between her knees and Freikugel laid out in the mud, pulsing ever-so-softly. The ancient heroes relic, which had been passed down her family for generations, was discarded like a broken tool in the mud. If Holst was here, he would be so disappointed in her. But Holst wasn’t there with her in that blood-soaked valley, and therefore couldn’t give Hilda his piece of mind. Plus, she didn’t like holding the axe any longer than she had to, especially after a battle. The weapon almost seemed to hum after the countless lives it had taken.

The axe freaked her out in the way that it felt so wrong, yet so familiar in her hands. Every time she picked it up and ended another life with it, the weapon seemed to whisper to her. It would always tell her to continue. So she would tighten her grip on the handle and end another life with it. Using Freikugel felt so right in her mind, but she knew it was the work of whatever dark magic was imbued in the weapon. So, after every battle she survived, Hilda would always resist the urge to continue to slaughter with the demonic weapon, and would instead discard it as soon as she could.

From her spot on the rock, the tips of her pink pigtails were dipped in the mud, more smeared up their long length. Her face was caked with mud and gore, but she was too tired to even bother cleaning any of it off. She was just trying to get the image of burying her axe in another man’s skull out of her head. She couldn’t stop thinking about the scared look in his eyes as she brought the axe down, his wish to run so clearly displayed on his face. He was fighting a war that she was sure he didn’t know much about. Probably conscripted from some farming village in the empire, and now he will never return home to his family. At least not the way that they had imagined. It was those images that kept her up at night, the ones she tried so hard to wipe from her mind.

Hilda felt bile rising in her throat, and let it come, emptying her stomach at her feet. She wiped her mouth and looked up, hearing the beating of wings. Claude’s wyvern landed in the middle of their temporary encampment, low, rumbling growls emanating from her deep within her throat. Hilda knew that despite her fearsome appearance, Claude’s wyvern was actually a sweetheart. She didn’t have anything to be afraid of, at least not from her. Hilda stood from her rock to greet Claude after the battle, knowing that he would have something positive to say, something to lift her spirits and make her forget about the horrors of battle for a while. But when she looked up to meet eyes with him, there was no one on the back of the wyvern.

*  


Lorenz stood at the top of the hill in the middle of Gronder Field, surveying the wreckage around him. Taking this hill from the empire had proven to be the most difficult task in the battle, and many bodies lay at the base of the hill, and all up its sides. The bodies were a mix of both red and gold, Empire and Alliance. Men who died fighting for their cause, commoners who sacrificed themselves for the good of the nobles. Truly an honorable death, to be led into battle by your superiors and to die fighting at their side. That was what Lorenz told himself to believe. However he knew that on the battlefield, they were all the same. A noble bled and died no differently than a commoner. That was, perhaps, the very thing that scared him the most. The simplicity in carnage. There were no ranks of nobility in the thick of the battle, no titles or land claims or petty court games to play. No, there was only the fight for your life and the men guarding your back. And while that scared Lorenz, it also made him question the very basis on which his ideals are built.

As he stared out at the carnage, his eyes caught on some familiar faces staring blankly at the sky. Men that died in his charge up the hill, whose names he could not care to learn before the battle. Men who died defending him, and fighting by his side. Maybe they didn’t fight for the same goals as the Alliance. Perhaps the men in his ranks simply fought for him, and he failed them. He couldn’t even carry out a thought in their memory.

His knees felt weak, and Lorenz soon collapsed onto them, arms hanging limply at his sides. The stink of decay and the sound of distant screams could not combat the drone in his head, the mental degradation after a battle. In some far-off place in his mind, he heard the distorted beating of wings, most likely from Claude’s wyvern. The sound rooted him, and he tried to focus on the wyvern in an effort not to be swept under again. From the corner of his eye, he saw her circle a couple times before landing in the middle of the temporary camp that they had set up. He stood up when he realized that there was no rider to guide her, no shining face stepping off of her back. She was alone.

Lorenz stood up and began to sprint towards the camp.

*  


Lysithea scanned a book from within her encampment, eyes glossing over the words. The dying sunlight barely broke through the cloth of her tent now, and she was instead reading by the light of two candles on either side of the book. The fire did not flicker. Instead, the embers burned true in the stale air of the post-battle. There was no breeze to blow away the stench of the dead. It was moments like these that Lysithea wished she had studied more wind magic, as to prevent the stale air from dulling everyone’s nerves. Alas, she had many other (more important) things to focus on.

Lysithea longed for something sweet to eat, to calm herself. She was still on-edge long after the battle had finished. That was how it always was with her. All the magic that she always ended up using fired up her entire system, and left her buzzing for many days beyond the battle. She was nowhere near exhaustion, though she wished she was. At least then it would be easier to sleep. In fact, she had barely touched the beginning of her limits during this battle. Sometimes, she frightened herself with the sheer depth of her power.

Lysithea tried again and failed to focus on the dusty old tome in front of her.. It was some old record on the studies of crests from long ago, and the histories of who they were passed down to, and how they manifested themselves in each person. Lysithea was hardly reading the words, her eyes focused instead on a memory from the battle replaying in her mind. The feeling of the dark words dancing over her tongue, the sting of the magic manifesting in the air, and the sight of droves of men being impaled by the obsidian swords that she summoned with just a few words. She couldn’t wipe the smell of their blood on the air out of her mind. Could forget the look on their faces as they died within seconds. All because of a couple of words that she uttered. She shook her head and clenched her eyes shut, trying to burn the image out of her mind. I’m not WEAK! She always told herself, seemingly after every battle now. The young girl always reassured herself that she could take the horrors of war just as well as any of the rest of her fellow deer. Claude especially! She always marveled at how that man managed to consistently have a smile on his face, even after every battle. She supposed that was a quality of a good leader.

She knew that each of the deer carried their own demons, and that they would never mock her for the trauma that she faced. It was something they all understood about each other without even having to say a word about it. The shared horror of being caught up in a war before you even get to experience what a peaceful world was like. Despite all this, Lysithea still felt the need to prove herself in every word uttered, every spell cast. She didn’t have much time to forge a legacy, and knew she had to take advantage of every second she was alive, traumatized or not. It seemed to be one of her many curses nowadays.

Lysithea huffed and slammed the book shut, unable to focus on the words with the battle still fresh in her mind. She decided to take a walk and see how the others were faring. As she stepped outside her tent, the hot air pressed down on her. It was unusual weather for the middle of spring, though maybe the heat was an after-effect of the battle. Lysithea glanced around the encampment, scanning for any familiar faces that she could distract herself with. Claude’s stark-white wyvern caught her eye almost immediately, a bit restless from the battle. She was too busy reading earlier that she didn’t even hear her land. She figured Claude must be somewhere in the encampment now, and set out to look for him. She had to congratulate him on a battle well won, and probably help advise him for their next move. The war wasn’t going to win itself.

As she strode in between tents, Lysithea felt an unexplainable tension in the air. Something was wrong. Any person that she encountered had a look of fear in their eyes, and everyone’s voices were hushed. Lysithea felt her fear well up. Why did everyone look so concerned? Was there a second wave of empire troops incoming? Lysithea was so distracted by her thoughts that she didn’t even notice Lorenz until it was too late. He collided with her, which sent Lysithea tumbling to the ground. He looked down at her, an almost unrecognizable look in his eyes. He looked so, so afraid. An emotion that she normally did not see him display. He didn’t even offer a hand to help Lysithea up, and instead just stared at her on the ground. She rolled her eyes and pressed her hands into the mud, pushing herself back to standing. Lorenz muttered something which was probably an apology, though Lysithea barely caught any of it. She shook her head and brushed off her uniform.

“Lorenz, what is up with you?” She asked, glancing up at him. Physically, Lorenz towered over her. However, at this moment, he seemed so small. His eyes were darting around the camp, searching for something. His hair was still matted with blood and mud from the recent battle, and he looked like a mess. Normally he was one of the most put together out of all of them. “Helloooo? Lorenz?” Lysithea said, waving her hand in front of his face. The noble finally looked down at her, fully recognizing her presence.

“Lysithea…” He started, looking away from her again, “Something is wrong. I was standing on the hill when I saw Claude’s wyvern land.”

Lysithea pressed her lips together and crossed her arms. Had Lorenz finally snapped? She decided to indulge him, despite his crazed demeanor. “What’s so wrong about his wyvern landing, Lorenz?”

He looked straight back down at her, eyes boring into her skull. She almost took a step back. Throughout this whole conversation, Lorenz had looked like he wasn’t fully there. But now, looking into his eyes, it seemed as though he had finally snapped out of it. There was such fear in his face that Lysithea felt sick to her stomach. Something was very, very wrong.

“Claude wasn’t with her.” He said. Lysithea almost doubled over. Lorenz began to run again to where the wyvern had landed, and Lysithea followed, right on his heels.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic posted on here so bear with me. got the idea off a random twitter thread that was deleted. it isn't finished, i want to see the response before I continue it. i kinda lost the "spark" to write it.  
> i pretty much only write angst so... here it is. hope you enjoy!


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